Blaz slams former city health boss

Mayor de Blasio again rejected strong criticism from the city’s former health commissioner, who resigned last year amid feuding with Hizzoner.

“It’s just not accurate,” the mayor said Wednesday of remarks by Dr. Oxiris Barbot in a BBC interview. “What I needed from my health leadership was clear analysis and clear recommendations, and I didn’t get that.”

That’s the opposite of new claims from Barbot (below left), who said that near the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, she warned the mayor of the potential for a massive death toll.

“Behind the scenes … we had talked to the mayor and his team that we could see tens of thousands of people die if we don’t act quickly,” she says in an interview clip published Monday.

Barbot characterized de Blasio’s response at the time as, “This panic in the room of like, ‘Oh, my God, you can’t say that to the public because we’re going to lose their trust.’

“We needed to prepare New Yorkers emotionally for what was coming,” she added.

Barbot resigned in August after months of conflict with the mayor.

In early March 2020, top health officials reportedly threatened to resign over the mayor’s reluctance to shut down the city. Then he transferred responsibility for tracking COVID cases — a key part of the pandemic response — from the Health Department to the city hospital system. There was also a public fight between Barbot and the NYPD over masks for their respective staffs, in which the mayor appeared to side against his health commissioner.

On Wednesday, de Blasio defended his handling of the outbreak, noting he called for shelterin-place orders days before Gov. Cuomo did.

“I’m the person who, based on advice I got from folks other than our health commissioner, called for shelter-in-place, which I think was one of the most important elements of the strategy,” he said. “That’s what really happened.”